Open AccessHow can peptide vaccines work?
Author(s) -
Rowlands D.J.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
fems microbiology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.899
H-Index - 151
eISSN - 1574-6968
pISSN - 0378-1097
DOI - 10.1111/j.1574-6968.1992.tb14080.x
Subject(s) - antibody , peptide , antigen , neutralization , infectivity , biology , mechanism (biology) , chemistry , computational biology , biochemistry , virology , immunology , virus , philosophy , epistemology
Peptide antigens frequently induce antibodies which recognise the denatured form of a protein from which their sequences are derived. However, the ability to induce antibodies which cross‐react with the native, fully folded form of the protein is less commonly observed. Although there is a growing number of examples in which this is the case, the ability to predict peptides having this property is extremely limited. Given the large surface areas involved in antibody/antigen interaction it is surprising that peptides could ever induce antibodies which would recognise the native protein well enough to have biological activity, such as the neutralization of infectivity. A mechanism is proposed to explain such observations which is compatible with many of the properties of antipeptide antibodies.